MTN Group—MTN Group ranked 2nd worldwide in 2026 Ranking Digital Rights Telco Giants Index, first emerging-market telco in the top 3
Ranking Digital Rights' 2026 Telco Giants Edition, published June 22, 2026, ranked MTN Group 2nd of the world's major telecom companies on digital rights disclosure (behind Telefónica), up from 6th place previously, making it the first emerging-market telco to reach the top 3. RDR credited MTN with strengthened governance disclosures, a new advertising content policy, and enhanced user-data-protection disclosures, while noting MTN still lacks detailed AI governance policies, including on AI risk review and whether user data is used to train AI models, and that its transparency gains face testing from the regulatory and political realities of the markets it operates in.
Scoring Impact
| Topic | Direction | Relevance | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Corporate Transparency | +toward | primary | +1.00 |
| User Privacy | +toward | secondary | +0.50 |
| Overall incident score = | +0.241 | ||
Score = avg(topic contributions) × significance (low ×0.5) × confidence (0.64)
Evidence (2 signals)
Ranking Digital Rights 2026 Telco Giants Edition scored MTN 2nd of major global telcos
Ranking Digital Rights, an independent research initiative assessing tech and telecom companies' disclosed policies on user rights, published its 2026 Telco Giants Edition ranking MTN Group 2nd worldwide behind Telefónica, citing strengthened governance disclosures, a new advertising content policy, and enhanced data-protection disclosures, while flagging continued gaps in AI governance transparency.
MTN press release confirmed its 2nd-place ranking in the 2026 Ranking Digital Rights Index
MTN Group's own newsroom announced that it ranked second worldwide in the 2026 Ranking Digital Rights Index, describing it as recognition of the company's transparency and digital-rights disclosure practices.